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Hundreds of Scientists Ask Biden to Cut the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

Hundreds of Scientists Ask Biden to Cut the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal, New York Times, 

In a letter, the scientists also urged President Biden to declare that the United States would never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict., By David E. Sanger 17 Dec 21,

WASHINGTON — Nearly 700 scientists and engineers, including 21 Nobel laureates, asked President Biden on Thursday to use his forthcoming declaration of a new national strategy for managing nuclear weapons as a chance to cut the U.S. arsenal by a third, and to declare, for the first time, that the United States would never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

The letter to Mr. Biden also urged him to change, for the first time since President Harry S. Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, the American practice that gives the commander in chief sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. The issue gained prominence during the Trump administration, and the authors of the letter urged Mr. Biden to make the change as “an important safeguard against a possible future president who is unstable or who orders a reckless attack.”

But while Mr. Biden has often declared that he will be guided by scientific advice alone when it comes to managing the Covid-19 pandemic, he has made no such pledge in the nuclear arena, where strategists, allies protected by the American nuclear umbrella and members of Congress all have views — many of them diametrically opposed to the ones described by scientists…………………..   https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/us/politics/scientists-letter-nuclear-arsenal.html

December 18, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA, weapons and war